“Excellent,” said Calhoun with remarkable cheerfulness. “That being the case, my friends, let’s get to work.”
The official banquet that night was remarkably festive. There was a sense of exhilaration in the air, largely because so much had been accomplished. Whether it was from a genuine desire to help the good people of Zondar, or whether from an equally genuine desire to keep all their limbs intact, the religious and caste leaders of Zondar worked with an amazing amount of effort in negotiating various treaties, agreements, and the like.
After his initial threats of violence, knocking heads, and dismemberment, Calhoun had been surprisingly quiet. It was not necessary, he felt, to be a continued intimidating presence. Rather he came to regard himself as something of a sergeant-at-arms. One who both inspired the peace and then made sure it was enforced. Si Cwan, for his part, handled the actual “dirty work,” as it were. His familiarity with the longstanding hostilities of the Zondarians, as well as his own previous experience in creating an enforced peace on Zondar, served him extremely well. By the end of the day when they discontinued talks to allow for the celebratory banquet, everyone in the room felt that they might actually have something genuine to celebrate.
The dining hall was elaborately festooned with decorations. Alcoholic libations were flowing freely, and there was much laughter and polite discourse. Arbora the Unseen was spotted repeatedly as she pirouetted across the dance floor. Maro the Questioner was seen fielding questions from Vonce of the Many Fortunes. The Dissuaders, under the watchful and threatening eye of Zak Kebron, kept more or less to themselves, got quietly drunk, and wound up having to be picked up from under the tables.
Through it all, and above it all, Calhoun watched the festivities.
And felt concerned.
Calhoun had always had something of a sixth sense for danger. It was hardly infallible, to be sure, but there was something there. He’d even been tested for it at Starfleet Academy, and researchers had found nothing in particular. Calhoun’s contention was that there was nothing to find because, during the research, no danger was present. Ultimately, whether they found something that they could justify or not was of no consequence to Calhoun at all. He simply knew that he had a sort of “warrior’s instinct” for danger. It might have been based upon his being able to look over a situation, instinctively know that something was wrong, and act accordingly. It might have been something on a psionic level. It might have been plain old dumb luck; after all, if one was suspicious all the time (as Calhoun was) and if one faced an assortment of people who wanted to kill one (as Calhoun had) then it was only natural that one would say, “Ah-hah! I had a feeling something was up!”
Whatever the reason, whatever the cause, Calhoun was concerned that danger was present during this festive occasion. He couldn’t place exactly what the source was; his instinct wasn’t always that specific. But in this instance, he felt a general free-floating apprehension. He wondered if Shelby hadn’t been right and perhaps the smart thing to do was return to the ship. But something in him railed against the idea. He had talked tough. He had threatened, he had badgered, he had cajoled, and, above all else, he had acted with supreme confidence. To tuck tail and run now just because he was having an attack of nerves just didn’t sit right with him. It stung his pride.
Something Shelby had said to him any number of times rang in his head: “Pride Goeth Before a Fall.”
He was aware of someone at his side, and he glanced over to see Si Cwan there. Cwan was regarding him with what seemed to be a mixture of disapproval and amusement. “I am not entirely certain, Captain, whether Commander Shelby would approve of your negotiation style.”
“It’s hardly my universal approach to situations, Lord Cwan,” replied Calhoun. A server brought him a large glass of wine. He sniffed it experimentally, sipped it slightly, and wasn’t thrilled with the taste. He put it aside. “In this instance, the people of this world have endowed me with a tremendous amount of power through their perception of me. There’s a good deal to accomplish on this world, a lot of walls to deal with. In some cases, I try to get around a wall. Other times I try to burrow under it. In this case—”
“You’re simply smashing-directly through it.”
“Exactly. It’s direct, it’s simple—”
“And it leaves rubble in your wake.”
“These people need help, Cwan.”
“No argument there, Captain. But Commander Shelby was right; we must tread carefully. After all, in using your strength as their savior to ramrod through needed changes, you run the risk of their becoming dependent upon you in order to do what needs to be done.”
“I certainly hope you’re wrong about that, Cwan,” replied Calhoun. “It’s daunting enough having the crew of the Excalibur dependent on me, and that’s in my job description.”
He looked out upon the celebration once more. “Look at them, Si Cwan. They’re happy. They have hope. We’re responsible for that. Does it matter how we get them to that point?”
“Yes,” Si Cwan said immediately.
“Let me remind you of something, Cwan: Your hands aren’t exactly clean in this matter. It was your people who forced a cease-fire down their throats by blowing up part of their geography. The Thallonians set the precedent. If I have to stay consistent with that in order to accomplish what needs to be done, well, I may not be happy about it, but that’s what I’ll do.”
“I don’t know about that, Calhoun.”
“Don’t know about what?”
“About your not being happy about it. I think you’re perfectly happy about it.” He leaned forward and Calhoun smelled the whiff of alcohol on his breath. Si Cwan was definitely speaking with a looser tongue than he usually had. “Just between us, I think you’re a bloody bastard who’d just as soon throw himself into a fight as walk away from one.”
Calhoun smiled thinly. “And why do you think that, may I ask? That I’m a bloody bastard?”
“Because,” Si Cwan told him, “it takes one to know one.” He winked heavily, rose to his feet and walked away with an ever-so-slight swagger.
A moment later, Zak Kebron was looming over Calhoun. “Captain,” he said softly—which, for him, was a low rumble—“do you wish to return to the ship?”
From nearby, Killick’s voice shouted out, “To the Savior!”
Everyone in the room echoed the sentiment, repeating the word “Savior!” or “Calhoun!” and his name rose in volume, thundering through the room, out into the streets beyond. And in the streets, people took up the chant, shouting, “Calhoun! Calhoun!”
And for a moment, just a moment, he was back on Xenex. Back in his heyday, with the mobs of warriors shouting his name as he would stand there, sword raised triumphantly over his head, declaring that Xenex’s oppressors would be driven from the surface of the planet, even if it took his dying breath.
He had never realized just how happy he had been at that moment. In a bleak fashion, he couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps his best days weren’t already long behind him. No matter what he accomplished, in many ways it would be nothing more than a mere rehash, a shadow of that which he had achieved so many years ago.
Calhoun drank it in. And for the first time in a long time, he was happy.
Shelby did not sleep well that night.
She tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable, and visions of Calhoun filled her head. Calhoun in pain, Calhoun in danger. When she awoke, she was covered with sweat, her simple white shift clinging to her body. Despite the constant, comfortable temperature of her cabin, she felt as if she were suffocating.
“Damn the man,” she whispered. “Damn the man.”
She called out in the darkness, cursing herself silently even as she did, “Shelby to Calhoun.” At the command of her voice, the computer-operated comm system immediately patched her through to Calhoun’s comm link. She knew that he would awaken instantly, as he always did. When they were together, it had always bugged the hell out of her. She
couldn’t so much as sneak out of the bed to go to the bathroom at night without Calhoun coming to instant, immediate wakefulness.
At this point she was prepared for the reception she knew she’d get. The confused and irritated voice, the demand to know why she had bothered him so early in the morning. He might even take offense that she had so little faith in him that she felt the need to check up on him.
What she was not prepared for was the dead silence on the other end.
Moments before she had felt mild alarm and major embarrassment over endeavoring to get in contact with her captain. Now the “mild” and “major” considerations had switched positions as her alarm swelled and her embarrassment evaporated. “Shelby to Calhoun. Captain, report in,” she said more loudly, as if he’d have a better shot at hearing her from the planet’s surface if she raised her voice.
Still nothing.
She had fully risen from the bed, and once more she said, “Shelby to Calhoun. Damn it, Mac, report!” She didn’t wait more than half a heartbeat before switching and saying, “Shelby to Zak Kebron.”
This time there was only a pause of a couple of seconds, and then Kebron’s voice responded. “Kebron here. Go ahead, Commander.”
“I’m trying to reach the captain. He’s not responding.”
“On it,” was the terse reply. And then she heard what sounded like a crash, and shouting.
And barely a minute or two after that, Kebron reported back—and Shelby felt as if her life were spinning away.
Kebron had been sleeping lightly, as he usually did.
He was fully dressed, as was his custom. Furthermore he had discovered some time back that he rested best when he was on his feet. The Brikar security chief would stabilize his balance, becoming about as moveable as an Easter Island statue, and then he would consciously slow down his body functions to an even slower state than they usually were. Even in his semi-dream state, however, he remained alert and aware.
He had offered to stay within the captain’s quarters, but Calhoun had told Kebron that it wasn’t necessary. Kebron couldn’t help but observe that the captain certainly carried his warrior’s pride close to the surface. He hadn’t even wanted Kebron to stand directly outside his door. “I’m supposed to be the most worshiped individual on this planet, powerful and unafraid,” Calhoun had told him. “How is it going to look if I have to hide behind my security chief?”
So Kebron had settled for being in the room next door and resting as lightly as he possibly could. Consequently he had come around immediately when Shelby had summoned him.
When he learned that the captain was incommunicado, Kebron did not hesitate. He and Calhoun had had adjoining rooms, but they were not connecting. A second later, however, they were indeed connecting, as Kebron charged forward and slammed one of his massive shoulders into the wall. It bent from the impact, shuddering. Kebron backed up a few steps and then barreled forward once more, and this time succeeded in plowing directly through. Mortar and rubble rained down around him as Zak Kebron stumbled slightly, but righted himself as he entered the captain’s quarters.
He wasn’t entirely certain what he had expected to see, but the sight that greeted his eyes certainly wasn’t it.
Assorted members of the Zondarian ruling and religious castes were grouped around the bed that Calhoun had presumably been lying in. The sheets, however, were in disarray, and there was no sign of the captain anywhere.
The smashing down of the wall was hardly subtle, and the others looked around in shocked confusion as Kebron stood there, quickly brushing off the powder and traces of dust. His eyes had narrowed to a diamond-hard glitter as his gaze focused on Killick. “Where’s the captain?” he demanded, and his voice was a terrible thing to hear. The men and women assembled in that room were the cream of Zondarian society, the best and brightest that their people had to offer. The masters of their race who feared nothing and no one. And every single one of them trembled upon hearing that voice. “Where … is … the captain?” Kebron repeated.
“He …” Killick seemed anxious to try and find the words, and was unable to frame them. He looked helplessly to the others.
It was Tulaman who stepped forward, doing everything he could to steel himself for the purpose of facing down Kebron.
“The Savior is dead,” said Tulaman.
XII
KERRON SLOWLY STARED around the room before his gaze returned to, and focused on, Tulaman.
“What are you talking about?” In direct contrast to his bulk, his voice was at that point so soft that everyone in the room had to strain to hear him.
“We …” It was Killick who answered. “We sought the advice of the Great One on a matter of some debate—”
“At this time of morning?”
“The Savior had told us that, had we any questions, we were to ask Him regardless of time. We believed Him, for anything He told us was, naturally, true. We came here, to His room, knocked on His door, and when He did not respond to our summons, we came here and found Him—”
“Found him what? Where is he?”
“He was dead, Kebron,” Tulaman said with certainty. “With my own eyes, I saw. His head to one side, eyes wide open, mouth partly open. It is my belief that He suffered some sort of seizure and simply … died. Heir to the frailties of the flesh, as much as any other man.”
“Indeed.” Kebron’s voice was so flat, so monotone, that the Zondarians at first thought that he had failed to grasp the severity of the situation. “Where is the body?” he asked.
“He was removed from here, of course,” Tulaman said. “None but the highest of the high in our caste—the wisest, the most holy, the most educated—would be worthy of seeing the deceased body of the Savior Himself.”
“I want to see the body immediately,” Kebron informed them. “Providing it can be produced, which I am beginning to doubt. He will immediately be returned to the Excalibur for proper medical treatment.”
“Treatment!” Tulaman was beginning to sound annoyed with statements that he considered to be beyond obvious. “What treatment is there for a dead man?”
“If he is dead, then none. If he is not, then I will go through each and every one of you until he is found. Bring me the body of Captain Calhoun, Tulaman,”
“Impossible,” said Tulaman with conviction.
“Wrong answer,” Kebron informed him. And before Tulaman could say another word, Kebron’s right hand swung around with what seemed a very slow, relaxed manner. The back of his three-fingered hand struck Tulaman squarely in the side of the head. Kebron had judged the impact quite precisely; if he’d hit Tulaman with any greater force, he’d easily have caved in Tulaman’s skull. As it was, the eyes of Tulaman the Misbegotten rolled up into his skull and he fell without another word.
The others stood there in stunned silence, and then Kebron turned to Freenaux and said, “Bring me the body of Captain Calhoun, Freenaux.”
“That … that isn’t possible,” Freenaux started to say. He got as far as “That isn’t,” however, and then his unconscious body joined Tulaman on the floor.
“Wrong answer,” Kebron informed the insensate Freenaux, and then he surveyed the remainder of the room’s inhabitants. “Sulimin,” he said. “Bring me the body of Captain Calhoun.”
“Right away, Lieutenant Kebron,” was Sulimin’s rather panicked reply.
This satisfied Kebron as being the right answer. Then he walked back into his quarters through the rubble of the wall and tapped his commbadge. “Comma